DW Nicos Weg review

Nicos Weg is Deutsche Welle’s free German course. It follows Nico, a Spaniard who moves to Germany, through a video series running from A1 to B1, with exercises, transcripts, vocabulary tools and grammar notes attached to each episode. It is the resource people point to most often when someone asks how to reach B1 without paying anything, and the one they name when a learner asks whether to carry on with Duolingo. Learners who use both usually run them together rather than swapping one for the other.

Verdict. The strongest free structured foundation for A1 and A2 German, let down by having almost no speaking or writing practice in it.

Best for beginners who want structure and can work with a story-led course, anyone rebuilding after a gap, and learners who want a free backbone to hang other resources on.

Less suitable for people who want a rule explained before they meet it, anyone who needs regular live speaking practice, and learners at B1 who need a B2 continuation, because there is not one.

At a glance

Dimension	Band	Why
Course structure	Strong	Repeatedly described as well built and aligned with standard A1 and A2 textbooks
Listening	Strong	The clearest reported gains, and the skill learners test themselves on afterwards
Value	Strong	Free, with no tier that withholds the exercises
Grammar	Good	Notes are praised on their own terms, though the context-first sequencing is contested
Vocabulary	Mixed	Good exposure, but retention needs DW’s own trainer or an external deck
Speaking	Weak	Near-universal criticism, and nobody treats the course as sufficient on its own
Writing	Weak	No writing exercises and no independent sentence construction

Weak means weak relative to what the course otherwise does well, not unusable.

What learners consistently praise

The structure is the thing people return to. Learners at C1 who have since moved well past it describe it as high quality and aligned with what standard A1 and A2 textbooks cover, and one made the point that a self-directed learner does not know what they do not know, so a course built by professional instructors is worth having as a spine even if you prefer exploring on your own (r/German).

The story format earns real affection. People describe finishing it to find out what happens, and one App Store reviewer kept opening lessons in a browser for that reason despite thinking the acting was overdone (App Store). Another learner said the course was well put together enough to be enjoyed casually, just for the story (Duolingo Forum Archive).

Listening and reading are where people report the clearest gains. One learner used the full A1 and A2 films as a comprehension test after finishing an in-person intensive course and was satisfied with how much they followed (r/German). Another, six to eight months in, credited it specifically with developing listening and with giving exposure rather than leaning on memorisation (r/German).

The grammar notes get praised on their own terms. A linguist answering a question about Goethe exam preparation judged the grammar teaching genuinely strong for the levels covered, while flagging that vocabulary retention needs separate tooling (Quora).

It is often the thing that makes a concept finally land. One learner who had been unable to get basic points of German to stick, even with the in-app tips of the Duolingo course they were working through, described this course as what got those concepts across, and credited it with unblocking their progress on the other one as well (Duolingo Forum Archive).

The strongest outcome report comes with conditions attached. A learner aiming at the Goethe A2 certificate worked through the A1 and A2 courses at four to five hours a day, took notes on every grammar section and copied out the vocabulary, and scored 92 out of 100, with 19 out of 20 on both reading and listening (r/German). Worth reading the conditions carefully: that learner had studied German for six months at school before a five-year gap, and already spoke Spanish natively plus English at C1. A second learner followed the same pattern, prior school German and an intensive daily pace, and reported a similar result. Both describe a workload most people will not match.

What learners consistently criticise

Speaking and writing are left to you. This is the most repeated criticism and nobody really disputes it. One learner named the gap precisely: the course lacks writing exercises and independent sentence construction (r/German). The A2 exam-taker made the same point unprompted, that writing and speaking are down to the user to arrange elsewhere (r/German). One Quora answer put it as the course being unable to carry someone fully on its own, with reading, writing and speaking practice needing to come from outside it. Our recommended resources page lists the speaking options learners actually name, tutoring platforms and exchange apps among them (Quora).

Some people simply find it dull. A learner who reached B2 tried a few lessons, found them tremendously boring, abandoned the course structure and rewatched the films as immersion material instead, rating them decent for that purpose once past the more contrived opening stretch (r/German). This is a minority view among learners who otherwise recommend the course, but it is a real one.

The companion app is a separate complaint from the course itself. A 2018 review described it as little more than a wrapper around the website, missing offline lessons, a glossary and copy-paste for looking words up. A 2023 review five years later made much the same complaint, praising the content and criticising the interface, and noting that plenty of other reviews said the same (App Store). The gap between what the course contains and how it is packaged is the one criticism that has not moved.

It also stops at B1 with nothing built to follow it. One learner who had outgrown the course wished DW would build an equivalent for B2 or C1, and had moved to unstructured native material instead because no equivalent exists (Duolingo Forum Archive). Nothing free covers B2 the way this covers A1, so the choices above B1 are paid ones, and the Goethe-Institut courses run all the way to C2. That happens to be where their own learners say the money starts being worth spending: the common advice there is to self-teach A1 and A2 and start paying at B1, which is exactly where this course stops.

Where learners genuinely disagree

The sharpest disagreement is about the teaching approach itself, and it is worth more than the usual is-it-good argument.

A learner partway through A1 complained that grammar and vocabulary arrive at the end of a lesson rather than the beginning, so new words turn up with no translation and exercises demand forms that have not been taught. The example given was an exercise on the past tense of sein appearing before any explanation of it (r/German).

The disputed exercise on DW’s site: a gap-fill dialogue between Nico and Nawin with dropdown menus for the missing past-tense forms of sein, under an instruction to listen to the audio first

Other learners pushed back, from different angles. A native speaker who is a frequent contributor to the subreddit argued this is the design working as intended: you meet the form in context, work out what it might mean, use it, and get the explanation afterwards, which is how essentially all language learning works once you leave the beginner stage. Another pointed out that the audio clip at the top of that specific page contains the correct form for every exercise on it, so the material genuinely is supplied before it is tested, just not as a rule to memorise first. A third noted the course has mouse-over translations for new vocabulary that the learner had probably missed.

So the disagreement is three-way: a design flaw, deliberate context-first pedagogy, or a learner missing the tools already on the page. The complainant’s follow-up, that the audio is fast and the exercises are in German, suggests all three can be true at once for a genuine beginner with no prior exposure. Someone else who found the course helpful volunteered that they had studied German at school and could not say how it would land for a true beginner (r/German). If you are starting from zero, it is the thing to try before committing.

There is a second, smaller split over exam readiness. One Quora answer argued that understanding all of the Nicos Weg content is itself a sign of a strong enough grasp to pass Goethe B1. Another on the same question disagreed, arguing the course’s vocabulary is not the right thing to study for that exam and pointing learners to the Goethe Institute’s official word list. Nobody reports passing B1 on Nicos Weg alone. One learner used its A1 and B1 seasons as two components of a much larger stack including Babbel, Seedlang, the vhs-Lernportal course, podcasts and dedicated exam practice (Threads).

How people who rate it actually use it

The advice below is not general study guidance. It is what recurs, unprompted, among people who describe getting results from this specific course.

Use the website, not just the YouTube videos. Several people arrive thinking the films are the course. The exercises, transcripts and vocabulary tools are on DW’s site and are most of the value (r/German).
Do the exercises and learn the vocabulary deliberately. The most repeated instruction, usually phrased as a warning not to just watch (r/German). DW has a built-in vocabulary trainer, and there are ready-made Anki decks built from the course word lists if you prefer those.
Take notes on the grammar sections. Both learners who reached strong outcomes did this, and one credited it directly for their exam result (r/German).
Expect to repeat units. Experienced learners recommend working through it more than once rather than racing ahead; one describes finishing A1, redoing A1, then doing the same with A2 before starting B1 (r/German).
Arrange speaking and writing separately, from the start. The course will not give you either, and every learner who reached a real outcome added them from somewhere else. The speaking practice section of our resources page covers the usual options.

One practical note for later: from B1 the lessons themselves are entirely in German, which is a step up people do not always expect (r/German).

At a glance

What learners consistently praise

What learners consistently criticise

Where learners genuinely disagree

How people who rate it actually use it

Sources